On February 20, the New Mexico Senate passed SB 73 by 27-10. It lets independent voters choose a primary ballot, even without having to join that party.
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This newspaper story says there are more than 200 election law bills pending in the Texas legislature. Unfortunately, there are no bills to ease ballot access, which is among the worst in the nation.
But there is a bill to add the statewide initiative process, SJR 25. The sponsor is Senator Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas). Thanks to Linda Curtis for that news.
This story says the rally concerning foreign policy in Washington, D.C., on February 19, attracted between 1,000 and 3,000 attendees. Tow former minor party presidential nominees, Ron Paul and Jill Stein, were among the speakers.
Arkansas SB 277 has been introduced. It has four Senate sponsors and 54 House sponsors, and is backed by the Secretary of State. It lowers the number of signatures for a new or previously unqualified party from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to exactly 10,000 signatures. It moves the petition deadline to three weeks before the primary. In presidential years the Arkansas primary is in March; in midterm years it is in May.
It permits the petition to circulate starting January 1 of any odd year, which gives proponents approximately fourteen months. The old law required the petition to be completed in three months.
This bill exists because the old law was held unconstitutional last year.
On February 7, Virginia House Bill 1414 died in the House Privileges & Elections Committee. It would have provided for party labels on general election ballots for candidates for partisan local office. Virginia is unique in leaving party labels off general election ballots for local partisan elections. Parties have nominees but that information is kept off the ballot.
Before 2000, Virginia even banned party labels for congressional and state office elections.